


Footprints on the sand

by Ruta



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Feels, Mutual Pining, Post-Season/Series 06, Season/Series 07 Speculation, sick!clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: "You are wondering when it will end. When will it be just too much? When will we break under the burden of our responsibilities, of our mistakes?""Atlas," he murmurs.She nods. On a different day she would laugh. In their case that complex has become part of them. She rests her forehead against his, moves her hand behind his neck and the sigh she releases is as much hers as Bellamy's, deafening in the bubble of silence that surrounds them. It is relief, it is exhaustion, it is a quiet acceptance that that is their reality and there is nothing and nobody, apart from them, who has the power to do something about it."Bear patiently, my heart, for you have suffered heavier things," she says in a very low voice.Post-Season 6. A Bellarke reconciliation fic
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 5
Kudos: 157





	Footprints on the sand

**Author's Note:**

> My third attempt at Bellarke and I'm not so sure about it. Anyway, enjoy it!

_Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living._

_― Omar Bradley_

Get back to normal isn't easy, but it has never been.

Sitting next to Madi during lunch, Clarke forces herself to swallow a few more bites even if she is not hungry. She is talkative enough, so as not to arouse suspicion. She intervenes when necessary, nods occasionally as Madi tells her about her training with Indra, her lessons on history and Grounder’s traditions with Gaia.

Madi doesn’t appear convinced, eyes fixed on her, too serious and penetrating. The dejavu is instantaneous and frankly terrifying. Clarke squeezes the spoon, knuckles as white as the walls of Mount Weather's quarantine department.

In spite of everything Madi doesn’t insist and doesn’t bombard her with questions. Her chest contracts painfully in a twinge that is all too familiar. Old Madi would have given her no respite. The new Madi barely blinks. No, that's not entirely true. After her near-death experience, she stuck to her side as she hadn't done since Bellamy and the others return. The only moments when she is truly alone are those when she works in the medbay and Madi is committed to learning how to be the perfect Heda.

After lunch Madi leaves with Gaia. She watches them leave and when they are gone she moves the plate away.

"You look like shit."

Raven drops into the seat Madi has vacated. Gray and dull complexion, the typical dark circles of those who don’t sleep, eyeballs with broken capillaries, she is the last person that should make such statements without expecting sharp answers. However Clarke remembers the conversation they had a few days earlier and gives up. Abby's death was a severe blow to both of them and yet it brought them closer, patching things up between them in a sort of way. Their exchanges are still tense and cautious, but at least Raven's voice has stopped being scratchy. She stopped looking at her with contempt, as if she hates her.

"Tell me something I don’t know."

Raven watches the plate intact, but doesn't comment. Clarke appreciates that.

"The situation is escalating."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I know you're a mess." Raven hesitates as if she regretted saying too much, is worried that she has made a misstep. Previously it was something that she would never, ever associate to the woman in front of her. This hesitation between acceptance and rejection, helplessness and frustration. "I miss Abby too," she says and the old obstinacy shines bright beyond the pallor and mourning when she adds, "but Bellamy needs you."

This leads to her looking away. She has never been a coward, but there must be a time when the instinct for conservation comes on stage. Late, but better late than never. "Not to the extent that you believe."

"And what the hell does that mean?"

"Do you think I haven't tried to talk to him?" She closes her fists underneath the table. "He barricaded himself in his room. Believe me, I tried."

"You haven't tried enough!"

"What about you then? You are his family, not me. Why should he listen to me?"

Her dismay is genuine, as are the silent accusations she throws at her. Clarke knows what she is thinking. It is clearly written on her face. She believes she is abandoning him again. She is not entirely wrong.

"You can't be serious. After all he did to bring you back-"

"I know," she interrupts her forcefully. "I'm grateful to him, to all of you."

"Then-"

"But I can't do what you ask me." She shakes her head. Against her will she feels her eyes moisten. When Raven notices, her anger begins to recede, silencing any previous protests and recriminations. "I can't tell him it's going to be all right. I can't lie to him."

When she gets up without waiting for answers, Raven doesn't follow her. Clarke can't tell if she's disappointed or the exact opposite.

*

She coughs, violent spasms that shake her back and force her to look for a hold on the nearest wall to stay upright. There is blood when she takes her hand away. She blinks and it's like it has just died the last fragment of the girl she was a lifetime ago, before the Skybox and Earth, before Praimfaya, before losing everyone she loved, one at a time, one after the other. _From the ashes, we will rise._ There is apparently a limit to the number of times it can be true.

*

After he finishes visiting her, as she gets dressed Gabriel turns his back to her tactfully and begins to sterilize the equipment he used.

Clarke puts on the shirt, hiding the scars again. "How long do I have?"

Gabriel doesn’t seem surprised by the direct question. Everything in him radiates resignation and pity. "Hard to say. A year, maybe less."

Clarke nods. She hadn't expected anything different. At the same time, hearing him confirm her worst fears is like being catapulted into another nightmare. _Kneeling in a dune with a gun pressed against her temple. Sat inside the Ark while looking at the farewell letter of a boy to whom she saved his life, but from whom she took away hope. Handcuffed and pleading while the man who she has waited for six years betrays her trust. Josephine showing her the memory in which Bellamy accepts the agreement with Russell, breaking her heart. Horror. The crushing grip of loneliness._

Madi, she thinks. For the first time, the thought isn’t accompanied by the usual wave of warmth and comfort, on the contrary it makes circumstances inevitable. She feels cornered.

"What will you do now?"

"What I have to."

"Aren't you going to tell them? Not even Bellamy?"

"They already have enough to worry about without adding me too."

"Clarke, I have to know. Why me? Why did you want me to visit you?"

"Jackson wouldn't bear the burden of a secret like this. I have no right to ask him to keep it. You instead-"

"I'm a stranger," he concludes for her. "You have no obligation to me. You have no loyalty or instinct to protect me."

It sounds exactly like it is. Cynical. Scheming. Cold. It doesn’t matter anymore. What's the point of hiding? Especially now, at the end of it all.

She exhales a sigh, exhausted. "Yes."

"I understand." His response, as well as his gaze, is analytical, not judgmental. "You know, in a different life we could have been friends. From the little I could see, we are alike. We are both idealists, but we prefer a scientific, empirical approach. Our mind is used to breaking down a problem like when we study the symptoms of the patient to identify the disease that afflicts them and give them the appropriate treatment. We both love proudly and when we do it is a timeless love, complicated, full of sacrifices and conflicting opinions. I imagine that there are points of no return for us too, however, isn't it? Yours was Madi."

For a moment she wonders how he knows. There is no way he- unless- _Octavia_. The name echoes like a shot in her head. It seems she has glass splinters in her lungs and that they have penetrated deep enough to make her taste the aftertaste of death. Blood. Sand. Ash. Gunpowder.

She swallows with difficulty beyond the lump in her throat. Clears her voice. "I forgave him."

"Forgiveness is not forgetting. Is that why you refuse to go and see him? Because of what you fear to feel seeing him suffer for his sister as you suffered for your daughter? You are a better person than you think."

"It’s more the time we spent apart than that we spent together. What does that say about us?"

"Judging by your bond? Time is relative, Clarke. No one ever told you? War changes who we are in deep, unspeakable ways. But so does love."

This time when she looks at him, similarly to what happened with Madi, someone else's face overlaps Gabriel's. Another ghost, another footprint in the sands of time. After a moment of amazement, she understands. He reminds her of Wells.

*

The room is a mess. Sitting on the floor, hair more unruly than ever and unkempt beard, bloody knuckles as if he had punched the wall, Bellamy is no exception. At first Clarke doesn't understand Murphy's comment when, after rolling his eyes, he says, "Here we go again. Is it the third time in six years? Not that I'm keeping track."

She doesn't understand until Raven turns to her and gives her an unequivocal look. Something similar has already happened in the past and it is not difficult to draw conclusions.

She straightens her shoulders. She knew it would be difficult. Not so. Not like this.

"Bellamy."

He doesn't raise his head. He hasn't given them the slightest consideration since they entered. "Go away." His voice is hoarse and harsh as if he were one step away from breaking.

"When was the last time you ate or slept?" Raven asks. She has her hands on her hips and seems ready to do battle. "Murphy, help me get him up. He need to wash."

"Don't touch me, Murphy or I swear-"

"What are you going to do? Glare at me until you make me collapse to the ground? I mean, besides we've been here before. Six years ago on the Ring after we lost Clarke. Are you becoming predictable, old man?"

"We won't go away," Raven intervenes. "You can scream until you strain your voice, punch Murphy, ("Seriously? It's always a pleasure to feel your love, Reyes.") give us the silent treatment. We won't leave you. We’re still family."

Bellamy doesn’t react, but Clarke watches the nervous traction abandon his back, his shoulders sag.

"Raven is right." She takes one step forward and then another until the tip of her boots brushes against Bellamy's. And still he doesn’t look away from the floor. He still refuses to look at them, to look at her. Anger builds inside her without her doing anything to stop it, grabs her by the throat. "You have wallowed in the injustice of the world and you know what? I’ve had enough. We all have had enough. Do you think you are the only one who has lost someone? Jordan has lost his parents. Raven has lost Shaw. I have lost my mother. We all lost our planet, our home, our friends. You are not alone in your pain, Bellamy. You never have been. Only that you have something that we don’t have. You still have hope. Octavia could be alive and instead of looking for a solution, you chose to give up."

"Clarke-" he croaks, lifting his head from his knees. His eyes are veiled with tears and despair and anguish have dug deep furrows around his mouth, on his forehead. She would like to comfort him, trace every new wrinkle with her fingertips, whisper against his skin the thousand confessions that she had the courage to tell him only during radio calls that never reached him.

It would be so easy and the temptation is strong, irresistibly sweet. She closes her hand into a fist before committing something irreparable. There would be no possibility of returning to normal and she has no right to do such a thing to him. Not when he thinks he's lost Octavia. Especially now, at the end of it all. Therefore, however impossible it may appear, she refrains herself from touching him more than is strictly necessary.

She kneels before him, Raven and Murphy on each side. Miller is guarding the door. Jordan stares at them from the other end of the room, torn whether to intervene or not. Emori and Echo remained with Madi.

"Bellamy," she says, dampening the hardness of just before. Now that she has reached him, that she has managed to dig a breach in his apathy, she can finally allow herself to be kind. She tries to instill in her voice part of the tenderness she is feeling. Contrary to what she feared, there is no trace of resentment or estrangement. They are still themselves, at the foot of a mountain to be climbed with bare hands. In front of a precipice while surrounded by enemies. On the edge of reality as they observe each other's heart which continues to burn and flare up after yet another loss. They are still themselves and even if everything has changed, on balance nothing really is. "I know what you're thinking."

"Do you?" The glance he gives her is inscrutable, excruciatingly hollow and Clarke feels she might cry.

"How could I not?" She pulls the curls away from his forehead and when she sees him close his eyes, she rests her hand against his cheek, tracing the outline of his cheekbone with her thumb. The way he reaches out doesn’t go unnoticed to her, seeking contact as if he wanted to prolong it, as if it represented the only fixed point in a world that is collapsing around him. "You are wondering when it will end. The war we have never stopped fighting since we first set foot on Earth. All those deaths. The impossible choices. The goodbyes. The guilt. When will it be just too much? When will we break under the burden of our responsibilities, of our mistakes?"

"Atlas," he murmurs.

She nods. On a different day she would laugh. In their case that complex has become part of them. She rests her forehead against his, moves her hand behind his neck and the sigh she releases is as much hers as Bellamy's, deafening in the bubble of silence that surrounds them. It is relief, it is exhaustion, it is a quiet acceptance that that is their reality and there is nothing and nobody, apart from them, who has the power to do something about it.

"Bear patiently, my heart, for you have suffered heavier things," she says in a very low voice.

She feels him stiffen, become a stone statue against her as Odysseus' words make room inside him and take root. The quote must have deep roots in his memory, intrinsically tied to his life on the Ark.

"I don't think I can."

"Yes you can," she replies quietly. "You can because I can."

"You've already done it once." Raven places a hand on his shoulder. A warning that strangely enough also contains a plea. "You survived it."

Bellamy finds her eyes again. He doesn’t seem to help himself. "I lost her," he croaks.

Clarke knows exactly what he wants from her. She knows she can't satisfy him, not this time.

As if he had read her mind, Murphy says, "Octavia is strong. Monsters and tyrants are difficult to kill. Just like the commander of death."

"What if we don't find her? The last time I saw her, the things I said -"

"It's okay, Bellamy," she tries to calm him down. "Whatever it is, Octavia knows you love her."

"Like you did?"

She wouldn't want to, but it’s stronger than her. She flinches and six years of separation suddenly collapses on her. The air in the room disappears abruptly. The abyss in Bellamy's eyes, the torment they show, is only a reflection of her own. It shouldn't surprise her. It has always been like this in the past. One the completion of the other.

"Raven, Murphy, leave us alone," she hears him say, the tone is imperative and leaves no room for different interpretations.

Clarke close her eyes, biting her lip. She doesn't watch them get out, but she hears the sound of footsteps moving away and, just before the door closes, she listens Jordan asking "Will they be okay?" and Murphy's immediate response "They’re Clarke and Bellamy. Nothing is impossible for them."

They are alone. She breathes with agonizing puffs. It feels like she’s in a dust storm. The last of her kind on the surface of a dying, burning planet.

"Clarke, look at me."

She obeys, although the way he is looking at her makes her tremble. It is not panic, it is not trepidation, it is not happiness. It is a confused amalgam of them all. It's like he looked at her in Gabriel's tent. Like she is something precious, fragile, incredibly dear. With love.

"I'm tired of living with regrets, wishing that I’d done things differently. Aren't you?"

"Bellamy," she says and shakes her head. What else can she do? What can she promise him? I'm dying, she would like to tell. She doesn't know when, it could be a month or a year, but she knows how she wants to die. It is a selfish desire. She found out she doesn't care.

When his arms wrap around her, drawing her towards him, the tears that she has hold back for days comes to her copious, uncontrollable.

"I know, Clarke. I know." He continues to repeat it as he strokes her hair, while kissing her forehead with a devotion that only serves to compress her rib cage.

No, he knows nothing. The secret burns against her lips like black rain, like acid fog. She tries to extricate herself from his embrace. He won't allow it. The tightening increases, spasmodic and urgent.

Bellamy continues to keep her head against her shoulder and she notices for the first time the unmistakable tremor that runs through his hands, the fact that he is preventing her from looking him in the eyes. _Oh_ , she thinks. The truth breaks through her mind with a clash of swords. _Oh_.

Thinks back to Raven's odd silences, her liquid stares that she had connected to Abby. How many times did Murphy and Emori pass by accident during her shifts. The fear in Madi's eyes when she thought she didn't notice she was looking at her. Echo's assiduous presence following her like a silent shadow, accompanying her in her trips. Bellamy, barricade in his room and crushed by a mourning that seemed disproportionate, unjustified given the fragmentary information they had about the Anomaly. But now, in light of what she discovered, everything makes sense. Raven's persistence when she tried to get her to talk to Bellamy, Echo's impassive admission when she told her of the breakup with Bellamy.

There has never been forgiveness.

She detaches herself from him and this time he allows it. He must have already understood. He knows her too well.

"How long have you known?"

"Gabriel saw fit to inform us."

That's not what she asked for. "How long, Bellamy."

Clarke knows the answer before he speaks. "From the beginning."

She doesn’t know how to respond to such information. Bellamy's fingers continue to rub her back in soothing circles. His eyes are no less haunted, but they are also firm in their intensity, like fire burning in water. She can't look away. She doesn’t know how the hell she is supposed to snap out of it.

"Talk to me. You're scaring me."

"What can I say?"

"The truth," he says without the slightest uncertainty. "Would you have told me?"

"Maybe. I don’t know." She focuses on a hole in his shirt. Seen from close up there are other patches and the expertise of the seam is undeniable. Son of a seamstress, she remembers with fondness. "Who cares?"

"I care. I never thought you could be such a coward."

"Coward? How dare you - what do you think I’m doing here? Why do you think I’m doing it?"

"Atlas", he repeats with a crocked smile that is painful to look at because it is all that a smile shouldn't be. It is more like a gash, more like a festering wound.

"You don’t understand."

"Then help me understand."

It is simply too much to endure. "What's the point?"

Calmly, as if dealing with a trapped animal, Bellamy replies, "Why do you think Gabriel told us? What do you think we were doing?"

"Octavia-"

He immediately interrupts her and the vehemence with which he speaks has the power to silence her. "It's a priority, but it doesn't take precedence over this. Clarke, we never stopped fighting for you."

By now she can barely contain her emotions. "Why?" She asks, half sobbing.

"You already know the answer." He pulls a strand of hair away from her forehead with a concentrated and absorbed expression of calm gravity. The feeling of dejavu could overwhelm her. "You don't want to hear it."

"Even now?"

"Especially now," he says. "Especially because it's not the end. It's not the end, Clarke. Promise me you'll try. Even if you don't think it's possible, promise that you will trust me."

"I trust you," she replies immediately.

This time his smile seems sincere and his eyes are no longer glassy, but bright. It doesn't taste anymore like a goodbye at the gates of apocalypse, but something new that scares her more than any battle she has ever fought, as only good things can do.

"To the point of entrusting your life to me?"

 _I entrusted my heart to you._ She touches his jaw and the gnawing fear, the heart-churning insecurity are welcome. It's where she wants to be and the prospect of the end, a peaceful end surrounded by her family, is less bleak than she had imagined. She doesn't want it to be the end and will fight to avoid it, but the alternative no longer frightens her as before. Whatever happens, she won't be alone.

"I've already done it," she says. It's the truth, but it's also a promise.

_Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers all that he wrought and endured._

_― Homer, The Odyssey_

**Author's Note:**

> Footprints on the sand  
> Original West End Cast of The Prince of Egypt
> 
> Footprints on the sand  
> Ripples on the river  
> Wispy drifting clouds  
> That blow across the desert sky
> 
> One day we are here  
> And the next we vanish  
> Vanish in the blink  
> Of an ibis' eye  
> We vanish in the blink  
> Of an ibis' eye
> 
> It’s not that I want glory  
> Or the world to know my name  
> But maybe just to leave things  
> A little changed from when I came
> 
> But it’s not my lot  
> Use what you’ve got  
> And all I am is
> 
> Footprints on the sand  
> Ripples on the river  
> Echoes of a sound  
> From a distant fading chime
> 
> One day we are here  
> Next I know we vanish  
> But I’m a fool  
> And so I like to fool myself  
> That I’m
> 
> Not just footprints on the sand  
> But someone who’ll leave footprints  
> On the sands of time


End file.
